Science Gateway Security Recommendations

Science Gateway Security Recommendations

Jim [email protected] [email protected]

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers 1127210 and 1234408.

sciencegatewaysecurity.org | trustedci.org

Science Gateway Security Concerns

• Confidentiality of pre-publication research data• Integrity of research results• Availability of services

• Provide trustworthy service to researchers• Maintain trust of resource providers• Use resources in compliance with policies

• Each science gateway is unique• Assess risks to determine appropriate mitigations• Risk = Likelihood x Impact


Science Gateway Risk Factors

• small, closely-knit user community

• public data(sky survey data)

• internal resources• focused functionality

• large, distributed, open user community

• sensitive data (personal health info)

• external resources• wide range of user

capabilities

less risk more risk


Science Gateways and Resource Providers

Deployment models include:• Dedicated: Resources managed by science gateway

• Science Gateway sets its own policies• Example: Rosetta Online Server That Includes Everyone (ROSIE)

• Transparent: Providing a new interface to existing resources• Users have accounts on existing resources• Example: TeraGrid Visualization Gateway

• Tiered: Science Gateway manages resource allocation• Science Gateway manages its own users

• Using community account / robot certificate at resource provider• May send per-user attributes to resource providers

• Examples: CIPRES, GENIUS


TeraGrid Science Gateway AAAA Model (2005)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1838574.1838576


Existing Security Recommendations

• Virtual Organization Portal Policy(EGI-InSPIRE SPG, 2010)

• Securing Science Gateways(Hazlewood and Woitaszek, 2011)


VO Portal Policy (EGI-InSPIRE SPG, 2010)

• General Conditions• Limit job submission rate Audit logging• Assist in security incident investigations• Securely store passwords, private keys, and user data

https://documents.egi.eu/document/80


TeraGrid: Securing Science Gateways (Hazlewood and Woitaszek, 2011) • Recommendations:

• Per-user accounting• Limiting access at resource providers

(restricted shell, grid interfaces)• Separating per-user data from shared software and data• Individual accounts for science gateway developers• Short-lived certificates for remote access

http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2016741.2016781


Science Gateway User Authentication

• Why authenticate users?• Access to external resources• Personalization• Maintaining state across sessions• Accounting / tracking usage

• How to authenticate users?• Outsourced: federated identities, identity as a service• Internal: password DB managed by science gateway


Federated User Authentication

• Avoid managing user passwords!• SAML: campus identities• OpenID/OAuth: public identities• Enables two-factor

authentication


Passwords

If your science gateway needs to handle user passwords:• Protect passwords from online attack

• Use HTTPS• Block brute-force attacks (e.g., Fail2Ban)

• Protect passwords from offline attack• Store password hashes• Use a strong hashing algorithm, with per-password salt• Use existing password hashing implementation

• e.g., PHP password_hash()• http://security.blogoverflow.com/2013/09/about-secure-

password-hashing/


Science Gateway Operational Security

• Prevent (eliminate) threats (when possible)• Detect security incidents• Respond effectively to security issues

• Goal: manage risks

• First Step: Early communication with local security staff• Provide security services (monitoring, scanning, logging, etc.)• Identify security policies and best practice recommendations

tailored to your local environment• Establish relationships now in case of security incident later


Respond/Recover

DetectPrevent

Basic Operational Security Checklist

• Software patching• Control admin access• Vulnerability scanning• Firewalls• Physical security

• File integrity checking• Intrusion detection• Log monitoring

• Centralized logging• Secure backups

Continuous Software Assurance

The Software Assurance Market Place (SWAMP) is a DHS S&T sponsored open facility to become operational in January 2014. It is driven by the goal to expand the adoption of software assurance (SwA) by software developers.

The SWAMP will enable you to:• Identify new (possible) defects in your software every time you commit a

change• Identify new (possible) defects in a software/library/module you are using

every time a new version is released• Track the SwA practices of your project

While protecting your privacy and theconfidentiality of your data.

http://continuousassurance.org


Science Gateway Security: Community Resources

http://trustedci.org/helphttp://sciencegatewaysecurity.org/discussionhttp://xsede.org/gateways

Documents

Science Gateway Security Recommendations